Resting Heart Rate and Cardiovascular Disease.

Abstract

An increase in resting heart rate (RHR) is associated with increased mortality risk,1 but the causal role of RHR for cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains unclear. We used the Mendelian randomization (MR) design to assess the associations of RHR with coronary artery disease (CAD), atrial fibrillation (AF), and ischemic stroke using summary-level data from the Coronary Artery Disease Genome-Wide Replication and Meta-Analysis plus The Coronary Artery Disease consortium’s 1000 Genomes-based genome-wide association study (N=184 305 individuals of primarily European ancestry),2 Atrial Fibrillation Consortium (N=537 409 European-descent individuals, including participants from UK Biobank),3 and MEGASTROKE consortium (N=438 847 European-descent individuals).4 A secondary aim was to examine the association of RHR with 13 CVD outcomes in UK Biobank (https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/; application no. 29202). We restricted the UK Biobank cohort to European-descent individuals and excluded related individuals, low call rate, and excess heterozygosity, leaving 367 703 participants for analyses. Studies participating in the consortia and the UK Biobank study had received ethics approval. All participants had provided informed consent.